


The Star Who Became a Sage

by NightsMistress



Category: Dark Cloud (Video Games)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel, pre-chapter 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24570298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: Defeating Dark Element saved the world from the Star of Oblivion but it didn't fix everything.  Everything that happened on Max and Monica's journey still happened, and that included Crest's death. Max and Lin are about to change that.An interquel journey set between chapters 7 and 8.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	The Star Who Became a Sage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ysavvryl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysavvryl/gifts).



Dear Mother,

It must be quite a surprise seeing this letter as well! It’s been some time since you and Monica returned to the future, and things have been fine here in the past. Father and I get along better now that I understand what it’s like to be separated by time from the people you love. I still work with Cedric, and keep improving Steve. Did you know he can fly now? Not for long, because I overstressed the engine, but it’s a start. If we’re going to have flying machines in the future, we need to start work now.

I haven’t only been thinking about the future lately, but the past as well. Lately, I’ve been thinking that there’s something else that I should be doing. The last time I felt like this, it was because I wanted to see the outside world so I could find you. This time, I think I knew all along that what I needed to do was to fix something that Monica and I hadn’t been able to last time. We didn’t know how to save him then, and then we didn’t have the time. I guess even though a part of me hoped that when we changed the past Crest would come back as well, deep down I knew better. Even after we changed the past, we didn’t change it enough. So we did this time.

I think you’d approve of what Lin and I did. I wish there was a way for me to find out. Instead, I’ll write you a letter, just like last time, and tell you everything we did. You can decide, all the way in the future, whether what Lin and I did was right or not.

***

Palm Brinks was now a busy transit hub, and the Blackstone Rail brought people from all over the continent. Now that people could visit the outside world they were, from traveling to Veniccio to see the beach and hopefully glimpse a sight of the Shigura to moving into the carefully weighted houses being constructed at Balance Valley. The increased travel also meant that more people were stopping in Palm Brinks, and business was booming. Cedric’s store was no exception, with people constantly streaming in to see the new inventions. In fact, things were so busy that Max rarely got the opportunity to work on Steve, and so when he got one he was loathe to give it up.

As such, when the door bell chimed, Max didn’t pull himself up from the floor where he was working on installing a new chassis to improve stability. He listened briefly to the footsteps to ensure that Stewart hadn’t come under orders from Max’s father to bring him home, and once satisfied that it was not went back to tightening bolts along the frame while bracing the new chassis in place with his other hand. It was fiddly work which required most of his attention.

“Um, excuse me,” the visitor said. Max froze in place, washer slipping from his fingers to fall onto the drop sheet that he was lying on. He knew that voice. He knew that voice very well, even if it sounded a bit different. His suspicions were confirmed when she continued with, “I was looking for Max. Do you know where I could find him?”

Cedric scoffed. “Do I know where to find him, miss? He’s right over there, working on Steve. Max! Get up, you’ve got someone to see you.”

Max was already pulling himself out from under Steve, stretching out a kink in his back as he did so. He put his spanner down on the dropsheet and used Steve’s frame to push himself to his feet. He’d had a growth spurt in the last few months and so could see up the ramp to see Lin standing in the doorframe.

“Thanks, Cedric,” Max said, as he made his way towards her. “She’s a old friend.”

“Yeah? I’ll leave you to it, then,” Cedric said, doing absolutely no such thing as he lingered around the till. Max expected him to do as much; after his and Monica’s adventures Cedric had openly expressed a longing to go on a similar adventure again, and Lin looked like she was bringing an adventure with her.

Something about Lin had changed since Max had last seen her. She was no taller, though that was no surprise given that Max had met Lin in the future, but she seemed that way by the way she looked around the workshop without a shred of nervousness. The staff strapped to her back was well-used, with nicks and scuff marks marring the luster of the lacquer staining the wood a dark brown. Even the way she walked as she stepped toward him was sure and steady. It reminded Max a little of how he looked after returning from his journey with Monica, more comfortable in himself and where he fit in the world and secure in the knowledge of what he could do next. He still didn’t quite know what it meant to be a sage, but he thought that Lin was much closer to what she thought it meant, and knew it.

“Hello, Lin!” Max said, wiping his hand on his overalls to remove any lingering grease. “How is your quest going?”

Lin’s smile was still the same, small and a little shy.

“Well, I think,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. I need your help again.”

That came as a surprise. When Max had last seen Lin, she had resolved to become a Sage in her own right and then save Crest on her own.

“Sure!” Max agreed readily, before adding, “So what do you need from me?”

“I was wondering...” Lin said, and then stopped for some reason. She took a breath, and said in a rush, “Do you have any starglasses left?”

Max shook his head in apology.

“No. We could only get them in the future, and I can’t get there anymore.”

Watching Lin’s expression change was like falling - slow at first but sickening all the way down. He looked away quickly, not wanting to see the full impact.

“Oh. I see,” Lin said blankly.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t make something else.”

“Make something…?”

Max had initially proposed the idea because he couldn’t stand Lin’s confidence being crushed by him. But, as he thought about it, he thought that it must be doable. After all, time travel in the future involved more than just the Atlamillia. Osmond and the Luna Lab had invented Ixion, and that allowed a whole train to travel ten thousand years into the past and future. Starglasses existed in the future, and were common enough that you could buy them in stores. If there was something Max understood, it was that inventions did not happen in a vacuum. People kept building on previous inventions, making them better, and there was no such thing as a perfect invention.

“Yeah. Starglasses weren’t the only thing the future had to travel through time,” he said. “The future had all kinds of things, including a train! And there’s bound to be more that I don’t even know about. But I do know that someone had to invent time travel. We already know it can be done. What if we’re the ones who invent the first time travel device that anyone can use.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah! I don’t know if you remember, but starglasses were from your future temple.” He grinned then, seized by the idea. “In fact, I think you invent them!”

“I do?”

“Yeah. And maybe you invent them for this reason.” The more Max thought about it, the more that it made sense. Who else did he know who would want to travel back to a specific, fundamental, moment and change it for the better? It surely wasn’t coincidence that the temple where you could buy starglasses was the temple that Lin would run in the future.

“You mean that we invent them,” Lin corrected quietly.

“I guess! I don’t know how the magic would work, but I’m pretty sure I can make all the components. Maybe you could store the magic in them and we can use it when everything is in place.”

“Store the magic? Is that possible?”

“You leave that to Max,” Cedric interrupted, to Max’s surprise. He’d forgotten that Cedric was there, his attention arrested by the possibility of a new invention. “If its a new invention you want, I taught Max everything I know.”

“You did?”

“Sure did.”

Max spared a moment to be warmed by Cedric’s gruff confidence before laying out his photographs on a nearby workbench. At the far end of the bench he placed a photograph of the starglass that he and Monica had purchased from the future, and spent a moment studying it. He remembered that the glass shimmered and felt cool to the touch, not quite the bite of ice but the more gentle touch of still water at dawn. Perhaps the jar was made using holy and water crystals? He made a note to that effect in his notebook and put that page and a photograph depicting a glass milk bottle below the photograph of a starglass.

He stopped then, musing about what he needed to make a starglass. What made it special, what made it different to an ordinary hourglass? A starglass was more than just stars, sand, and glass. It was also time, memory, and emotion. Every aspect had to be imbued with that. Perhaps he could only use crystals that he and Monica had harvested together from the future? He’d been keeping those crystals separate for a special project, and perhaps this was the special project to use them on.

The shift in his thinking meant that the next idea was easier. He and Monica hadn’t collected a falling star, of course, but flicking through his photographs reminded him that they had collected something that might work just as well. He put a photograph of Mount Gundor looming over Heim Rada underneath the milk bottle photograph. He had taken it in the evening while the Fire Squall was still showering embers onto the town — or where the town would be, to be more accurate — and because of the poor light quality the embers looked like stars in the sky. The embers had cooled to a dark smoky glass by the time he and Monica had collected them, which Max had thought was curious at the time. Monica, less so; apparently magic did strange things like that. In any case, Max could use the ember to make molten glass, and imbue it with the crystals he and Monica had collected.

That was the easy part. The sand itself was going to be hard. It needed to glow, to reflect all of the colours of a rainbow, and it needed to fall in a way completely unlike any sand that Max had seen. Even the fine sand at Veniccio had too much weight. Max remembered it falling through his fingers like water, but he needed something finer and lighter, something that would slip through his fingers and hang in the air, as if almost too light to fall.

He flipped through his photographs, and then again, and nothing jumped out at him to explain the phenomenon he had seen. Perhaps he was wrong, and it was the sand at Veniccio after all? That didn’t seem right. He flicked through them again, and wondered whether the answer was that he hadn’t seen anything like the sand in the starglass.

“Um…” Lin said. She pointed at a photograph of the Rainbow Butterfly, wings outstretched and the sun setting behind her. “Don’t you think the dust from her wings looks like the sand in the starglass?”

Max took another look at the photograph. He hadn’t paid attention to the scales falling from the Rainbow Butterfly’s wings, but now that Lin had drawn his attention to it, it did look exactly like the sand in the starglass. He remembered the way that it fell from her wings as they were fighting her, and how it floated in the air in its gentle fall to the ground. It lingered in the sky in the same way that memories linger long after the event has passed.

“You’re right!” he said gleefully. “That’s exactly it! And I know where we can get that!”

“I take it you’re going on another trip?” Cedric asked.

“Yeah, once I make the jar,” Max smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Cedric, I’ll be back soon.”

“I assumed so. Don’t you worry, I’ll take care of everything with Gerald.”

“Thanks, Cedric.” He turned to Lin and grinned. “We’re off to Sindain.”

***

Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that. This time I wasn’t running away from Flotsam’s goons, so I had time to prepare everything beforehand. I had to make the starglass jar right here in Palm Brinks, because I didn’t have enough embers to make more than one. I got pretty good making things while on the move, but with parts as rare as these ones, it’s best to make it in the workshop. It was pretty scary at one point, but fortunately everything turned out all right!

I was worried that Lin wouldn’t have anything to do while I waited for the glass to cool, but she and Father started talking about the Atlamillia for so long. It was the longest I’d heard him talk to anyone! It looks like you left some of your books behind, because Lin said that there were some books about time travel magic. In fact, she said that thanks to them she knew what to do to make the starglass work! Though I suspect you left them behind on purpose, because you knew that we’d need them one day to save Crest. We’ll take good care of your books so that you can have them back in the future. Though I suppose you already do have them and know that we looked after them.

Finally, the jar was ready. It didn’t look as nice as the ones in Lin’s temple, but I was proud of it anyway. I’ve attached a photograph of it to this letter, so that you can see the first starglass that existed.

Once that was done, the day arrived where Lin and I would go to see the Rainbow Butterfly to ask for her help.

***

The Rainbow Butterfly still resided in the depths of the woods that bore her name, a forest seemingly untouched by the developing settlement of Sindain nearby. The trees were shedding their leaves with the change of season, and the litter underfoot made a satisfying crunch every time that Max and Lin stepped on it. The sound echoed throughout the wood and scared off monsters as well, or at least that was Max’s theory. There were still some Himurra reckless enough to attack, but for the most part the monsters left them alone and so Lin and Max left them alone as well.

Lin was more adept with her magic than Max had expected, better even than Monica. At first he had been worried, but after a carefully timed blast of lightning from her rod, he shook his head in rueful disbelief. Of course she was able to protect herself from monster attacks. She’d been wandering the continent looking for her answers.

“I had to learn,” Lin offered with a crooked smile in response. Max thought about asking about it, but decided that now was not the time. Instead, they kept walking past familiar sights such as the tree where Max had run Steve into and broken one of its arms, and the creek Monica fell into while eating bread. He told Lin those stories and although she didn’t say much, he was rewarded by her smiling slightly.

The more that they walked the more distant civilization felt, until after half a day of walking it felt like they were the only people in the world. The trees became larger, the leaf litter thinner, the roots underfoot larger and harder to walk over, and the sun less able to penetrate the thick canopy cover to the ground below. There were no monsters here, but they could hear the sound of insects chirping as day moved to afternoon. It took Max a moment to recognize the faint roaring at the edge of hearing was the waterfall, but when he did he picked up the pace.

“We’re almost there,” he said to Lin, who nodded and started walking faster as well.

The transition from forest to glade felt instantaneous, as if stepping from one room to another. The one plant in the center commanded attention: an enormous flower with a stem as tall as the old trees. The waterfall behind it was equally spectacular, and the setting sun reflected rainbows on the falling water. It was a breathtaking view, even for Max who had seen it before, and he was gratified that Lin looked impressed by it. He glanced at the sky, but couldn’t see the Rainbow Butterfly anywhere. She wouldn’t be far away, he reassured himself, especially given that she had visitors.

“I’ve been wondering,” Lin said. “If the Rainbow Butterfly is a monster, how can we ask for her help?”

“All monsters can talk, but some of them can talk in ways people can understand,” Max explained. “The Rainbow Butterfly’s one of those. But to talk to her, we’ll have to go up there.” He nodded at the flower.

Lin frowned. “How do we do that?”

“Like this,” Max said, and reached for the vine that trailed down the stem of the flower. He knew that the tentacle was coming to grab him and braced for it, but the sudden yank and upward pull still startled a cry from him. The tentacle let him go a few feet above the flower and he stagged forward to prevent himself from falling. Lin was in the same boat, falling to her hands and knees as the second tentacle dropped her on the petal next to Max.

Now that the two of them were safely up on top, Max took a moment to appreciate, again, the sheer enormity of the flower that the Rainbow Butterfly called her home. The flower towered over trees that from the ground seemed to be impossibly large, held up by a stem that was almost as rigid as wood. The petals were easily as wide and long as the main street in Palm Brinks, supporting Max and Lin’s weight easily, as if they weighed nothing at all. The stamen, with its pollen coated anthers, looked like street lights. After the overwhelming presence of trees in the wood, the open space was a welcome if strange sight.

“Wow,” Lin said. “This is really big.”

“Isn’t it?” Max grinned at her. “The Rainbow Butterfly shouldn’t be far away.”

“I don’t think so either,” Lin said. “Isn’t that her?”

Max followed the line of her arm as she pointed at the horizon and saw a glowing speck darting around the sky. The speck grew larger as he watched, the color changing with every moment. He waved enthusiastically, his whole arm in the motion, as the speck grew close enough for him to make out the incandescent wings that gave the Rainbow Butterfly her name, radiant in all of the colors of the rainbow. Once she drew close enough to hover above the flower, the butterfly disappeared in a shimmer of light. When the light faded, the Rainbow Butterfly looked like a human woman with a gentle smile hovering a foot above the ground.

“Hello Max,” she said. “Is Monica not with you today?”

Max blinked against the unexpected sting her words caused.

“No, she had to go back to her own time.” Max then gestured at Lin. “This is Lin. She’s a friend of ours.”

“I’ve heard of you,” the Rainbow Butterfly said to Lin, to Max’s surprise. “Your master protected the Moon Crystal. It was very brave, standing up to Griffon like that.”

Lin took a shaky breath.

“He was.” She swallowed, angling her head back as if to hide the tears welling in her eyes. “He was a true sage.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Max went on, wondering whether he should look at Lin or look away. He decided to look away. “We need your help.”

“Of course,” the Rainbow Butterfly agreed readily. “Anything for you, Max. What do you need?”

“We need some scales from your wings for an invention. We’re making a device to travel to the past.”

The Rainbow Butterfly inclined her head in agreement with the studied grace and dignity that typified everything Holly did, before changing back to her monster form. Max was caught off-guard by the sudden change, and fumbled through his pocket before pulling out the starglass. In the light of the setting sun the glass looked like it was made of holy fire, the light so striking that it overcame the imperfections in the jar’s shape and contours. He didn’t have time to admire the starglass, however, as the Rainbow Butterfly was flapping her wings in careful, deliberate strokes. She flapped her wings four times, filling the glass to the brim as well as showering the two of them with scales, before turning herself back to Holly once more.

“Will that be enough?”

Max screwed the cap onto the starglass and put it back into his pocket. It was heavy in his pocket, a comforting weight that reassured him that for all that it was a prototype, it was sturdy enough to do what they needed it to do.

“Definitely,” he said. “Thanks, Rainbow Butterfly.”

“You’re welcome.” She looked at the two of them before adding, “You can stay here tonight if you like. The monsters should stay away.”

“Thank you!” Max said. “That’s really nice of you.”

The Rainbow Butterfly nodded again, smiled, and transformed into a butterfly before taking off into the dusk sky. Max watched her go before sitting down on the petal and looking up at the sky. He felt, rather than saw, Lin sit down a short distance behind him.

“Are you okay?” he asked Lin, leaning back on one hand to look at her. She looked tired, shoulders sagging under the weight of the day’s exertion, but more composed than she had before.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s a good thing. It means that this will still be my most important memory. It just hurts sometimes.”

 _Sometimes_ , Max thought, really meant _all the time_. He missed his mother and she was perfectly fine, just in a place and time he could not reach. Crest, on the other hand, would be forever out of reach if they were not successful this time. They had already failed once before. Failing again, without any chance of a redo, would be devastating. Little wonder Lin was worried.

“I’m forgetting thing about that day,” Lin confessed. “I used to remember it all so clearly. The way the smoke hurt to breathe. The flames so close to me, even with you protecting me. Master Crest and the crystal. I thought I’d never forget any of it.”

This, on the other hand, was a surprise to Max. He had thought that Lin was afraid of failure because of the invention. He hadn’t thought that she was worried that it might not be important enough to her.

“But now you don’t?” Max asked.

“Not like that.” Lin stayed silent. Max said nothing, letting her fill the space in her own time.

“I remember everything that happened, but it’s more distant now,” Lin said finally. “I’m worried that one day it won’t be my most important memory, and that will be the day that Master Crest really is lost forever.”

Max scooted around to face her directly.

“You don’t have to worry,” he said. “In the future, we meet you, right? Well, even after so many years, Crest is really important to you. The starglass will work, and then this time we’ll save your master. Deal?”

He extended his hand. Lin stared at him for a moment, before taking his hand and shaking it.

“All right. Deal.” Despite agreeing, she didn’t look convinced. She tilted her head slightly and asked, “But without Monica, how will you drive the airship away? You can’t be in three places at once.”

It was a good point. Max hadn’t thought about that. Because there was only one of him, he could only be in one place, so he would have to make it count. It would have to be something only he could do as well.

Then it dawned on him that he knew exactly what to do. There was no point fighting Gaspard directly, because while Max might be able to win the fight, it wouldn’t really achieve anything. In order to make the crystal truly safe, he needed to get Gaspard to realize that what he was doing wasn’t right. He and Monica had done it once before, but Sirus had stopped him before he could make good his new resolution to change. This time around, Sirus wasn’t going to influence Gaspard. Maybe this time he could get through to Gaspard, and cause him to think that he should reconsider. They could save Crest, the crystal, and Gaspard as well. It was a great plan, and Max started giggling at how perfect it was.

“I have an idea about that,” he said brightly. “We’re going to fix _everything_.”

“All right,” Lin said. “Let me know what I need to do.”

She smiled then, and Max’s grin widened. This was definitely going to work.

***

I didn’t know that Lin was so worried about forgetting about Crest. He’s been so important to her for so long that I didn’t think it was possible for his death to not be her most important memory. Maybe that’s why the Lin in the future, Great Sage Crest, never tried. They had starglasses for sale tht even we could buy, but the only Sage named Crest was Lin. Maybe she was a Lin who didn’t want to try only to find out that his death was just one of many important memories for her. Sad times, happy times … there must have been so many for the older Lin to be worried.

But it made me wonder too: will the Lin in the future still get to have those memories? Will she still have those sad times and happy times? Or would she have different important memories? I wish I knew the answer. You would know, of course, but I can’t ask you. Either way, I want Lin to have those times with Crest and Lin would want those times with Crest too, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

As for trying to persuade Gaspard … I thought we had nothing to lose. It’s not just that it would be easier that way, though it would be. We tried to help him back in Heim Rada but we failed at the last minute. He was so close, that I thought that maybe this time, without Sirus possessing him, we could change his mind sooner. I thought it would take some time, and that this time all we’d achieve was saving Crest’s life. Saving Gaspard from his own vengeance was something for another day. Or at least that’s what I thought at the time.

Needless to say, things went in a completely unexpected direction once Lin and I arrived at the lighthouse on the cape within Starlight Canyon.

***

When they arrived at Balance Valley, they went straight past the little house that Lin had shared with Crest and straight into Starlight Canyon. Max had slowed his steps as they walked past as a silent invitation to Lin to go home if she wanted. She had walked past without missing a step, and Max rushed to catch up.

“You don’t want to stop?” Max asked when he drew level with her.

“No,” Lin said. “I swore that I would not return until I was a sage.”

Max privately thought that Argo would like to see Lin one last time before they changed the timeline, but on seeing her set face decided against suggesting it. He could understand why she was so reluctant to go home. When a person was taken from their loved ones, memories linger like ghosts on everything they had used and known. It would be terribly hard to go back now, even with the hope of claiming back what had been lost.

“You’ll be back with Crest soon enough,” he said instead, and Lin smiled.

“Yes, we will.”

They fell into companionable silence once more, focusing on the task ahead of them - traversing the Starlight Canyon to the cape on the other side. Much like Sindain, the threat was greatly reduced from the last time Max had passed through with Monica, but the two of them still had to keep their wits about them as they landed in one area after another.

Now that Max knew that Lin was as capable as Monica, he was able to relax and take in the sights in between shooting things with his gun or hitting them with his wrench. Starlight Canyon was as different as Sindain to Palm Brinks, and despite having traveled through here numerous times he still felt a thrill when he looked over the edge to see the long drop below. Lin, having lived here for a while, watched him in bemusement but said nothing.

Finally, they arrived at the cape, a long, wide strip of land that inclined gradually upwards from the depths of the canyon to finish several hundred feet above the canyon floor. The lighthouse stood proud watch at the end of the cape, a tower tall enough that it looked like it could pull the moon out the sky, and crowned with the Moon Crest, a milky luminescent gem that glowed even in the middle of the day.

When the three of them had walked to the lighthouse last time, it had been a long walk even with the gentle incline. This time around, Max came prepared. Steve had been following along obligingly, his wheels sturdy and large enough to traverse even the most treacherous of terrain, and now his moment had come.

“Want a ride?”

Lin’s wry smile was answer enough, and the two of them climbed into Steve’s body. Max took hold of the controls and steered Steve up the paved path with a steady hand. Steve’s speed made the walk a matter of minutes, and meant that they had time to recover their breath after the long hike before commencing the most important part of their mission.

Once they arrived, Max helped Lin to climb out, before climbing out himself. He straightened his cap, having been knocked askew by the wind, and then his weapons. Lin dusted herself off and stared up the staircase to the lighthouse with a complicated expression. Max could understand that; this was the third time she had stood in this location, and she had watched her beloved master die twice already. Even he was anxious, and he was confident in his invention.

While he waited for her to compose herself, he started reconfiguring Steve: stabilizers and ailerons in place of arms and weapons, rocket engine instead of wheels and legs, and removing as many superfluous items as he could. When he finished, Steve would be as light as he could be, as agile and fast as Max could make him, but also very fragile. He would just have to not get hit before getting through to Gaspard.

She took a breath and turned to him.

“You still haven’t told me how we’re going to win against a flying ship.”

Max finished tightening the bolt holding the engine in place before answering.

“I’m going to talk to him.”

“What?” Lin said, clearly taken aback. “But he’s … not really going to want to talk to you.”

Max smiled. Now that the moment was upon them, he was confident of the success of his plan.

“I know I can get through to him. But until I do, someone’s going to have to protect Crest as he protects the crystal.”

“No,” Lin said immediately. “I’ll protect the crystal. Master Crest will be safer away from it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. I know what to do.”

Lin was confident, and so Max was confident in her. He nodded.

“All right. Let’s do this.”

With that, Lin disappeared into the tower to climb the stairs and then scaled the frame leading up to the crystal. She moved with the fluidity and ease of practice, suggesting that perhaps this was not the first time she had been in close proximity to the crystal. That made sense as she was Crest’s apprentice and he would have taught her how to read the crystal’s visions. Max watched her climb and waited for her to be secure in her position. When she gave him a thumbs out, he climbed into Steve and pulled the starglass out from his bag.

He flipped the starglass and time changed.

Max hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes, and when he opened them he could see that a man with long blue hair and fine robes was standing at the top of the lighthouse. Crest was there, but Max couldn’t see the Lin of the past. He could see his Lin near the crystal, making a complicated series of gestures with her hands that he thought must be to do with magic, but not her past self. That was curious, especially as Lin had told him that she and Crest were together this day.

He didn’t have too much time to think about this, because Gaspard’s airship was making its way toward the tower, and had fired its first volley. He flinched, waiting for the flames to strike the tower. They didn’t. Instead, they struck something in the air and burned out, leaving a smouldering patch in the sky. As more fire was thrown at the tower, Max was able to make out more of the something that was holding the fire at bay. It was like a bubble that encircled the tower, deflecting both fire and radiant heat, and glowing like a flame itself with stored energy. Max spared a moment to look up at Lin, before turning on the rocket engine.

Steve roared into action, shooting past Crest and Lin both before slowing down between the tower and the airship.

Up close, the air ship was a marvel, an engineering accomplishment that Max itched to disassemble and understand. Now was not the time, and he steered Steve to dart in front of the airship and hang in front of it. Gaspard was there, and he strode over to the front of the ship with easy and menacing grace.

“A child?” He laughed. “Do you think your clever invention will stop me?”

“No!” Max yelled back. “But would your mother really want you to do this? Is this really protecting something important to you?”

He could see the impact of his words in the way that Gaspard flinched, eyes going wide before narrowing in suspicion.

“How do you — How do you know that?”

Max kept Steve moving in the hope of drawing the ship’s fire. He wasn’t successful, but it looked like Lin was holding up fine. Crest was near the handrail closest to the ship, looking around in confusion. Things were going as he had planned, if not as well as he had hoped.

“You told me!” He said to Gaspard. “In the future.”

“In the future?” Gaspard sounded surprised, but not too sceptical. That also made sense - he had had to travel through time himself in order to have killed King Raybrandt. He would have known that it was possible to travel to and from the future, even in a timeline that was slowly forgetting about the Atlamillia and what they could do. Things still happened as they had, but the reasons behind them were more malleable.

More importantly, Max could hear the doubt in his voice. He was willing to believe what Max was telling him. He pressed the advantage.

“Yes! I came from the future and the past, before the Star of Oblivion was sent away!”

Gaspard shook his head, not to negate Max’s words but because he could not accept them. “You must be tricking me,”

“He’s not,” Crest said, to the surprise of everyone. “The crystal shows the future, and it has always shown a future with two moons. Now, it shows one.”

“Master?” Lin said, the first thing she had said since the two of them had travelled back in time.

Crest looked up at her and smiled fondly.

“Dear Lin. You’ve traveled so far, haven’t you? It’s okay now. You can come down.”

Lin made no move to come down. Max turned back to Gaspard who was shaking his head in disbelief.

“Emperor Griffon… loses?”

“No. Sirus chose to send the Star of Oblivion away.”

Max could see the tension warring on Gaspard’s face, and held his breath as Gaspard raised his hand. Would he still transform into a demon, despite Sirus now not wanting to change the future, because that was what had happened in the past? Would he be able to take the first step towards redeeming himself, and let Crest live? Everything rested on a knife’s edge.

Then —

“Stand down. There’ll be no fighting today.”

The fire stopped. Max hovered in the air, waiting to see what would happen next. After everything that he and Lin had done, he wanted to see the results of their efforts to change time.

The first to move was Lin, climbing down to where Crest was standing, and staring at him. The second was Crest, closing the gap between them to fold her into his embrace. The third was Gaspard, directing the airship to leave.

And the last was Max himself. He had started moving toward the tower with desperate speed as Steve coughed and started rattling, the engine overheating and breaking down under the strain of flying. Making things worse was the starglass, which had been running hotter every minute. As he drew closer to the tower, the starglass vibrated rapidly until it exploded, taking Max’s sense of time with it.

***

Max’s return to the future was quite rough and all at once - the screech of twisted metal, the splintering of wood, and the wind being knocked out of him. He took a moment to stay where he had landed, flat on his back with the wreckage of Steve around him, and catch his breath. He could see the crystal up ahead, its frame untouched by flame or heat, and he managed a sigh of relief that they had still saved the crystal.

He heard two sets of footsteps, one lighter than the other, and he opened his eyes to see that it was Crest and Lin. Lin looked surprised but didn't seem to recognise Max. Crest, on the other hand, was less surprised but also definitely seemed to recognise Max. They'd succeeded then, and the delight of that meant that Max was able to push past the aches and pains in his body and sit up.

From this vantage point, he could see that Steve was in terrible shape. The base of his body was mostly intact, but the top was in pieces, the engine was a smoking mess, and the wings were nothing more than shrapnel. It would take ages to fix. Max was looking forward to it.

"Are you okay?" Crest asked him. "It looks like you had quite the accident."

"Oh, yeah," Max said, laughing sheepishly. "It looks worse than it is. I'm fine. Steve on the other hand will need a bit of work."

"And Steve is….?"

"My ridepod. He's just there." Max gestured to the wreckage. "Though I might have to make a second trip to get all of his bits."

"It's a long journey to do on your own, but we can take you -- and Steve -- back with us," Crest offered. "It'll be much faster our way."

"Master Crest," Lin asked. "How did you know he was here?"

"The crystal showed me," Crest said.

"On the day that you went here alone?" Lin pressed.

"Yes."

Crest then winked at Max over Lin's head. There were so many questions that Max wanted answers for, but he suspected that the answers for most of them were this: Lin and Max weren't the only ones trying to save Crest's life. Though, he suspected that Crest's involvement was also to save _Lin's_ life, because Lin may have died in the attempts to save him. It all worked out for the best for all of them, so Max decided not to think too hard about the time travel loops that would have had to take place. Everything worked out, and that was all that mattered.

"I'm glad you did," he said to the two of them. "I don't want to think about how hard it would be to make it back on my own!"

As it turned out, Crest had a very efficient way to travel from the lighthouse back to their house. He could use magic to travel from one place to the next and bring people (and Steve) with him. It made things very convenient, and they were all back at the station before he could blink.

It took some time to load Steve into the Blackstone Rail, even with three people doing the work, and Max could sense that Lin was looking at him the whole time. It was a little unsettling, but he waited until after everything was done and he could take her aside to ask what was wrong.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Lin was staring at him with a thoughtful, almost troubled, expression.

"Do I know you?" she asked carefully.

It wasn’t the first time that someone from outside Palm Brinks had looked at Max and felt like they knew him. The timeline where he had met them was gone, or at least altered in ways he was still trying to work out, but people still seemed to keep some vague recollection of him. It didn’t come as a surprise to him anymore.

“Maybe in a different timeline!”

He had expected Lin to laugh - most people did when he said that.

“Maybe so.”

That seemed more like Lin. In Max's experience, she wasn't one to laugh it off. He wondered if she would ever put it together and remember the Lin that had traveled through time to save her master. Maybe not. But that was okay too.

He waved goodbye to her and boarded the Blackstone Rail to return to Palm Brinks.

***

And that’s everything. After that, I caught the Blackstone Rail back to Palm Brinks, apologized to Father for leaving so quickly, and stared working on repairing Steve. It took a while to repair Steve. It wasn’t just the casing that was damaged; the engine gave out just as we arrived at Balance Valley Station. I practically had to rebuild Steve from scratch!

It was worth it though, to see Lin and her master reunited once again. I don’t know how much Lin remembers, as it would be confusing to remember a history where Crest died and one when he lived. She wrote to me the other day saying that she is researching time travel though, so maybe she remembers it in the same way that everyone here remembers that there were once two moons and that there has only ever been one moon at the same time.

If you see Lin, could you show her this letter? She may not really remember all the neat things she saw and how cool she was protecting the crystal, but it’d be sad if she didn’t know all the things she did to try and rescue her master. It’s a pity I won’t get to see her reaction when you show her the letter!

And if you see Monica, tell her that Gaspard came to see me in Palm Brinks the other day! He wants me to say that he’s sorry for everything he did. I told him I’d put it in my letter to the future, and she can read it then.

Love, Max.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaand shortly after Elena reads this letter, Monica jumps back to the past using a starglass, kicking off chapter 8. After all, someone has to keep an eye on him!


End file.
